Pastor Greg

Greetings! I'm Greg Meyer. The one God started working on first to try to start a new kind of church. One that people wouldn't have, but that people were. Since then the vision has become the vision of hundreds of others.

I've lived in south Minneapolis since 1991, so my roots are deep enough to make me a little skeptical when someone new comes to town and tries to try to tell us who we ought to be. If you are wondering about Jacob's Well, and who I am to think we need another church in south Minneapolis when there is already one on nearly every block, well... read on.

First, who am I?

I grew up in Wisconsin (being next to WI is one of the best things that ever happened to MN, by the way!) I'm a St. Olaf ParaCollege grad in sociology, anthropology and religion. I did my Master of Divinty at Yale University, and followed that up with post-grad work at Luther Seminary in St. Paul.

I spent my early years as a pastor in Papua New Guinea (PNG) where my wife, Kris, and I started our family. I had been there in college doing research. Kris had lived and studied in France, so going overseas was a natural. In PNG I worked for the indigenous church supporting local leaders, helping with development projects, and generally encouraging them to put the brakes on 'western Christianity' so that they could figure out what Jesus looked like in Papua New Guinean clothing. I spent about 7 years there. Spending that much time in a culture that is as radically different as theirs is from ours drums out the assumptions we so easily make about how life is supposed to work. My Papua New Guinean friends were wise and patient teachers.

Upon moving back to the states I came on staff at Bethlehem Lutheran (41st & Lyndale) and later became the Executive Pastor there. It was from there, a healthy, growing church that reaches people who have positive church memories and value traditional types of church music and liturgy, that my journey towards creating a church for people who aren't like that developed and gradually became Jacob's Well. (Read "How we were born" in the 'New to Jacob's Well' pull down tab.)

My passion is and always has been leading journeys of discovery. I believe discovering what God has to do with our lives is the greatest and most significant journey we have the privilege to be on. Leading journeys of discovery through Jacob's Well is an unending journey as we acknowledge that we will never "have it." Rather, we will forever be shaping our journey to match what God has in mind and what we need today, tomorrow and the next day. A lot of work? Yep. But I can't imagine anything more important, worthwhile or exciting. (You can read more about this on my blog: PrecariousPastor.net.)

What else... Kris and I have four kids who have grown up in the Mpls Public School system, we live right here in south Mpls and love it.

I hate easy answers, or actually answers at all. I live for insights and better and better questions that move us - and God - out of the box. I think our job as followers of Christ is to spend our lives discovering just how big God really is. That's what Jesus did. That's who Jesus was.

I love to sail, play basketball, run around the lakes, spend time with Kris and my kids, read, write, drink really good coffee (it should always be too thick to stir but too thin to plow) and... why kid myself, I don't have time for half the stuff I listed already.

What I really look forward to is meeting you. I hope to talk to you and hear your story some day.

Peace, Greg

Oh yes, why start churches in south Minneapolis when there are so many already? That's easy, we don't need more churches, but we desperately need a new kind of church. I bet you agree.